Illusion
by l'amour-the-poet
Summary: Moment by moment Davis's emotions are leaking into Doomsday, and Chloe is more afraid of losing him than she can admit. Beast


* * *

There is blood on her hands, the rust colored coat of it covering her right palm, flaking and chafing against the plastic.  
She could wash it off, but if she rubbed the skin raw and bleeding it wouldn't feel clean. Maybe this is the part where she starts walking on castle turrets and jumps.  
Instead, she grinds her teeth at the weight of the bag and lets it go, listening to the thick sound of it hitting bottom.

It must be that the adrenaline makes her shake. The man had followed her with a knife, dug it into her skin, had been right about to leave Lois a message carved into her before It ripped him away. Somehow It knew her, because of Davis, because of this thing she doesn't understand.  
She is alive and the man is dead, the remnants hidden away behind a makeshift cover.

She's never handled death well.  
She remembers going to the general's once at seven; being inside the mansion while Lois was at camp.  
There was a cook, a bristling man who cooked on elaborate French recipe by boiling lobsters alive. Her notebook header had read 'animal cruelty, the expose'.

When the cook had gone out she couldn't help thinking about the pain, every nerve ending under the little shell on fire. It wouldn't hurt so much if she cut behind its neck, severed it easily at the base of the nerve connection so it wouldn't feel the pain.  
All she remembers was that the shell was so hard and its legs scrabbled, and when the sound stopped she still heard it in her head  
There is no sound now.

This is the hardest thing to take.

She'd taken a human being and put what was left into dumpster.  
She wants to muffle the tears, but the blood is on her hands. She leans against it, doesn't think of what may be coating it, of evidence or particulates. She lets herself sink.

* * *

Blood and fear; these are the things she remembers.  
She had gone down to the basement after the sounds had stopped, pain making her neck tender but terror choking in her throat.  
It was down there and she couldn't hide any more.

It felt like something was ending, when she finally was forced to see what he did, what he was, what she couldn't stop.  
It was Davis she saw on that floor, clothing in tatters and a red line of blood gleaming on the skin over his chest, streaked on his elbows. Skin that it had pierced through.

He looked comatose, not at peace and for a few seconds she felt a horrible irrational terror that maybe he was dead. She quickly reminded herself that he was the Ultimate Destroyer and he couldn't.

He'd died once because he wanted this to end, because of what he was going to do.  
She was supposed to be his savior. Not this.

This ended something.  
Perhaps she should have retreated, gone back, not have taken this from him too, but she couldn't not if it meant that he would have to wake up to this, the blood, alone.

Her eyes slid around him, to the concrete. She had known but she hadn't known.  
This is nothing like those photographs she'd seen before. There weren't random splashes of scarlet, all colors blending into it.  
The mottled mass had bones and flesh torn away like a guise. There hadn't been much to left to recognize as human.  
This wasn't about a mission, it was about rage.

This is what It could do; and it left her paralyzed. She saw Davis's face and maybe this is what the tears were for.

* * *

Her voice felt sore and painful as she tried to tell him in starts and stops.  
There had been sorry in his eyes, for her, but only for her. She caught a glimpse of something much darker when he heard the whole of it.

"He could've killed you."

He'd un-wrapped the scarf gently and his hands had been light. She could have counted his touches: his grip light on hers and not bleeding, on her arms, through glass. He'd never hurt her and she needed to know that he was still there.  
She'd watched him die.

Feeling this was normal. She'd been living with him for weeks, known him for what felt like all of her life fighting against the pull and never managing, hadn't touched him.  
Her eyes had closed and she'd seen talons tearing through skin, blood on the floor, invisible blood on her hands.  
She'd jerked away.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he'd said and his face reminded her of a wound.  
Someone had died. No matter how they tried to keep it together, this would always happen. This changed things.  
She couldn't comfort him, not now.

She couldn't. This hurt more than it should have.

* * *

She remembers him kneeling on the floor with the flimsy sponge in between his hands, the jerky twist to his shoulders, the heavy reek of pine sol and ammonia.

He hadn't gotten used to this.  
He had gotten to the cleanup before she had the chance, as if she was too pure for this, as if she hadn't caused it. Her hands were clean and she found herself feeling useless and nauseated.

She stayed.

He'd bagged everything and her thoughts strayed to how he must have learned this. She tried to forget how sickened he looked or the fact that the look in his eyes was broken.

He'd wanted to take the bags out too, but she knew he couldn't get out of there.  
She could smell the blood all over her, him, between them.

"It's only a few blocks." She'd said, and blinked because any minute her face would crumple. He could see her lie unlike anyone else.  
She wanted to run.

"Okay." The bags were at the foot of the steps, a whole yard between them, a gulf.  
He understood now, what all this meant. His eyes were deep and rimmed raw and whatever pain she was feeling was nothing compared to what he was trying to hide.

He couldn't leave this behind, the blood and fear. He'd never wanted to be what It was. Protecting her had turned everything upside down. She was abandoning him because of it.  
_  
Run._ She should've taken the chance when she had it.  
But she couldn't be scared of him, not him. He couldn't be hurt but he was vulnerable to her.

"Do you have clothes?" she thought she said. "I'll get you some."

The streak of blood was still on his face, hiding the paleness from days without sun. Before she knew it she reached out and wiped it away. Maybe it was to prove she wasn't scared, because he needed human contact. All she remembers is he closed his eyes and leaned in and they breathed together.

Two seconds.  
Two seconds at the most, but the blood coats her palm, marks her.

* * *

She'd made a choice, somewhere along the line. She'd waited.  
She could say the choice was made for her but she's never been one to do that. She knows she made it, one second after another. Davis was hurting and the pain became her own.

Now, she's hiding bodies in dumpsters, lying through her teeth, placing herself in stiff opposition to her friends. To Clark.  
It's hard and goes against what has been her nature, but she does it.

If she saves Davis she saves the world. She can be hope or Joan of Ark or the person in his corner. He can fight this somehow, provided she never gets herself or into danger, always stays with him.  
This is the only way for him.

She'll learn to make it her life. If she can do this, this one thing, it will be worth it. (She was supposed to be Davis's hope. He wasn't supposed to be hers.)

She wonders what else she would do to keep him close.

* * *

"I'll be back in twenty minutes." she'd said. (I'll be home, she'd told him, before.)  
It's been half an hour, maybe. Her face is dry, her arms are chilled and her head aches.

She pulls herself off of the ground because this is what she does.

* * *

Inside, she showers until the water burns and slips on a thin robe that doesn't hang to heavily on her skin. Her face in the mirror looks off, and the thousand things that want to spill out are still heavy on her tongue.  
She'll go see him now.

This time she doesn't separate the tub of lasagna out into little bags.  
It's been a routine of theirs.

She'd cook in batches and it all went together into the fridge. He ate it himself, cold.  
They'd talk about the world out there (and some days she'd say inappropriate things- like filling him in on the latest of the weird when it was the last thing they needed more of). She'd talk about the past if they could stand to, but never the future.

She remembers little about what she said, mostly him, this Davis that replaced the man she knew. It was no longer easy in the way it had been, not light unobtrusive banter and flirtation. Everything about him know seemed weighed with meaning. He'd tease her less, but his hands always came stumbling to aid her in the least thing.

She mostly remembers his eyes and his smile that was sad even when it was there.

* * *

She finds a shirt that she'd given to Jimmy once, years ago. Blue-that-could-be-black, that had found its way to the back of the shirt closet, packet unopened.

It loops under her arm and the tub is in her hands, but she doesn't stumble in the thready light. The only thing that could make this more Florence Nightingale-ish would be a candle stump in her hand.

* * *

She's not a very good conversationalist at dinner. The list of her ingredients doesn't really count, but when she opens her mouth she knows he's listening to every word even for the sound of her voice.

She forces the fork to her mouth rotely and doesn't look down. The metallic smell is in the air and the red has associations.  
He eats quicker than she does and this is out of character for him. His left hand rests on the table, almost clenched, two feet away from touching her sleeve.

Only natural. She'd almost died. He needs reassurance. His hand wavers but he looks up instead.  
There's nothing intrusive about the way he does it but she can't breathe.  
She shouldn't do this to herself.

His eyes shift to the mark on her bare neck, a ridiculously thin line, but a reminder f all the ways they are different. "The bandages came off." She says.  
He offers to bandage it.  
Sometimes she still has this ridiculous thought where she wants him to reach out and fix her, bridge the gap and it will be okay again.  
It can't possibly be that easy.

Their attempts at conversation have floundered, now. They always talk, but maybe body language is ninety percent of communication.  
He settles in the chair, but it's all a lie because his shoulders have that tense set to them, like they want so badly to grab onto her and her grip on her fork is like a strangling vine.  
She says nothing, watches.

The shirt reminds her of the way he'd dressed back when life had been normal, if it had ever been that, for both of them. She'd once seen him as the cute paramedic with the deep eyes, the scratchy uniform with lifemed on the left pocket, and the strange quality of knowing her too well.  
Now they are here, in their own figurative underground, blood between them.

He could be Hades dressed like that, or some prince of darkness ready to lead her farther off her path. He's Davis to her, so the black only intensifies the contrast. His human skin is chalky and ultimate genetic coding or no, this isn't healthy for him.  
She could make a crack about open castings on Dracula, or anything else stored in her vault of witty remarks.

"I'm going to sleep with you tonight." She says, instead.  
No explanation. Just that. She's never slept down here. The idea of his leg getting accidentally pressed up against hers in the night on one cot felt like something too intimate and forbidden, dangerous, she thinks, is the word.  
She'd wanted it.

She purposely loosens her strangle grip on the fork, and quirks the side of her mouth up.

"I mean, I'm going to stay down here. That okay?"  
He's curiously mute and for a second she wonders if he's heard everything underneath what she just said. He nods quickly enough, and that's what this should be. Simple. Uncomplicated. Her friend she's going to stay with because he'll scare the spooks away. Only he looks at her like she is some light at the end of a tunnel, and this frightens her.

"I think there's a sleeping bag somewhere in the drawers. I can take that if you want." He says, knowing.  
He'd sleep on the floor, where the body had just been with the smell of blood.  
He would do it.  
Maybe this is because of the way he sees himself. Part of her knows he'd lock himself in solitary; eat off of the floor if she told him to, if she saw him that way.

She is his only connection to the world out there. It's only natural, normal for him to look at her like this. Only nothing about them had been normal from the start.  
He'd always seen her differently than anyone else. He hadn't seen her as someone to keep stored away for when the dream girl wasn't such a dream or someone he could just as well take as leave. He'd seen her as the first.

Even when she'd been turning away it warmed her, but now it presses in on her with the weight of gravity.

The fork of his scrapes awkwardly, a screeching sound on the ceramic and this has always been her key that she should go.  
She's getting too close now.  
She tries to look at the strange stacks of old advertising and signs around them, anything but him. She sees every little detail about how this has marked him, the little droplets of water in his hair from the defective shower, the fact that the only razor in the basement is dull, the dry red color of his hands from ammonia and God knows what that will vanish soon, never return.

He pushes the plate aside, stacks it neatly with hers. He doesn't take them away just yet, but stays, as if this is some sort of gift she's giving and will take back. She can, can't she?

His eyes are on her and she's not going to move. The scarlet is still tattooed on the inside of her eyelids.

"It never goes away does it?" she asks him and she should be scared of the answer.  
She'd seen what he'd seen, in those photographs on her computer, image after image. But it had been so much easier to put up a barrier, the denial.

She hadn't wanted to believe. And now she has to.  
Now she just doesn't want to be alone.

He could reply with a thousand details, unburden himself of the secret now that they are just alike.  
"No." he says.

"I didn't think so." She wishes he could be free for little while, but this is not how it works. His horror against it is his incentive, telling him to fight.

But he has Its memories of tearing people apart when the guy she'd met all those days ago had wanted to put people together again.  
"I don't deserve to forget. You do." He has this idea that maybe he's destroying her.

"It's not so bad."

"You were crying up there."

"Remind me to guard myself against Kryptonian ears."  
There's nothing Kryptonian about it. She'd found him sleeping on the steps, head against the door more than once. Maybe he needed to hear breath and heartbeat. Hers.

"You can talk to me."  
Clark had said that too. She'd lied and maybe he'd believed her about needing time.  
Davis is not Clark.  
She can't pretend, not where it matters.

"A. J. is in a dumpster in downtown Metropolis." She says finally. She brings herself to say the name, because that's what he was. A man who would have killed her, but a man.

"I left the seat covers behind with my jacket. The blood was everywhere and all that was left was a bunch of parts. Blood, skin, bones; just like all of us-everyone else. I threw him away."  
She's glad he doesn't give her platitudes. What could he say to that? "It was just hard to take, you know?"

"I'm sorry. I hurt you. I should've…"  
Should've. Could've. Should've. Lois shouldn't have made up that fake article of hers. AJ shouldn't have found her, but he had. She should have kept her tazer in hand.  
The words would do nothing at all.

"Hey. It did beat being butter flied open like a nice fillet." (AJ didn't get butter flied. He got turned into a puddle of organs that she wouldn't have had the stomach to pin on the wall of weird.)  
It must feel impressed into Davis's skin.

"How are you holding up?"

"I'm okay." he tells her, and he's really not that smooth of a liar now.

"Since we're doing the whole sharing thing you might as well tell me what's on your mind. Fair's fair."

"You were afraid."

"Well that's the normal state of things when someone attempts to murder me, I would suppose. This isn't about me, unless you could…smell it or something." Clark knew her heartbeat, why should Davis be any different? "You didn't mention your senses changing."

"They didn't. I just felt it." She used to think she could feel when Clark was in trouble, but that was just a talent acquired of knowing his expressions.  
Davis hadn't seen her.

Maybe this was biological, that she could handle. Maybe it was something right out of 'the House of Usher' and it wouldn't let up till they were both six feet under.

"So you felt something and then you blacked out. You were really spot on with that connection thing." She hadn't expected a literal breathing thing to come out of this. She hadn't expected it to kill somebody.  
"Maybe what I was feeling triggered you."

"Don't put this on yourself. That's what it does. You didn't make me do anything."

"It doesn't explain why It didn't come after me. I mean I get that thing you do, I do, whatever. You wouldn't hurt me, but It should have been programmed to. That was one petty crook.  
At the wedding, It kind of kept tearing through anyone that got in its way."

Except her.  
Maybe there is still a throwaway bit of Braniac's programming that still kept it tied to her. Maybe both halves of him are merging so that Davis will be lost to her.  
She has to keep him. Keep him human.

"It saved my life tonight." She says finally. However It did. She accepts it now and maybe this is the step to letting go. Maybe this means she's just falling farther. "I just tried to do damage control." By shoving parts in bags. Not moral, but that's just the way it was.

"It seems pretty up there on the Richter scale of favors or crazy, but in context .... It can't ever happen again, but for now let's call it even."

"It's not even. You're giving yourself up to save me. I didn't want to drag you down with me." She wishes he wouldn't always throw out the things that happened in her head.

"You, me and the world. I'd say it's worth it."

"I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry. Those memories won't go away for you."

"If I stay down here and make new memories, maybe I won't keep seeing a dead guy every time a close my eyes."

"It shouldn't be like this."

"But it is." It's not like they have much of a choice in the matter.  
She knows what it should've been like. Just both of them, no monsters, dead people or misguided marriages hanging in the air. He would have been able to touch her without loss gnawing away at her gut. That doesn't change things as they stand.

"It's like this, it's going to be like this and this is all we can do."  
It's not bitter, but he almost looks like she hit him.

Moments, an intake of breath, she should say something but she doesn't know what.  
"I'm going to carry a tazer in my sleeve and make damn sure I don't die. Alright?"

He could be like any other sensible person and say alright back.  
"I couldn't take it if you died."

"You-it didn't let that happen."

"Exactly. I think it was me too, Chloe."

"I hate to break down your chain of thought, but I've lived with the weird and never seen someone of your size inflict that much damage. You couldn't have done all that ripping. I saw the body." Or the lack of it.

"What about my mind, then? It wasn't ever quite like that before." Rage. It was rage.

"Maybe whatever you feel for me---"He felt, he did feel. "is bleeding into It. So you were panicked and it was worse. This may mean you can get some control."  
It could mean he could no longer control what he felt and the world would suffer for it. Unless they found a way. They had to.

"When you told me, I wanted to kill him all over again. I'm not who I thought I was."

"Isn't it good I know who you are? I trust that and I trust you. You know what they say, don't shack up without it."  
She feels safe. It's illogical but means more than the rest.

He looks at her, his voice is soft, and it was stupid to think that things could change at all.  
"I don't know how you can still feel like that. You've given so much." That look on his face shouldn't be for some hybrid of a saint, the Virgin Mary and some perfect, beautiful warrior angel.

This is her sensible voice. Chin up, face set.  
"And I'll keep on, whatever it takes. Anyone deserves a chance to live. I'm not going to give up because you happen to have a few genetic screws loose."

She won't kill him again, can't.  
It is the selfish part of her that feels these impulses too.

"Chloe, I'm not exactly your regular run of the mill meteor mutant."  
He's destined to kill the world's greatest hero.  
"In a few weeks you've done more for me than anyone has in my entire life. Now one else would do anything the half of that even without knowing what I am."

His eyes beg her for this to mean something, and she thinks he's going to ask her again if this is all it means to her. The chance to protect the world and her friends.  
He doesn't.

"You don't have to do this forever. If it gets worse, if it goes downhill and you find a way to stop it, I trust you do it."  
He might have just as well signed off a document giving her permission to kill him.

"It won't get to that point."

"If it does…?"

"Call it reporter's instinct; call it any damn thing you want. It just won't, alright?"

Maybe in her dreams he's a bit more like she remembers him. (Charming and inappropriately beautiful in that way she's only seen in one other person before him. He had been different, had loved her.)  
That Davis would have asked her if there wasn't more to this, that maybe it wasn't just because of her code of ethics. He'd have reminded her. He would've kissed her and she would've admitted it to them both-fiance or no fiancé.  
She hadn't been his self appointed savior before.

Now he just sees and the aching tenderness in his face makes her think that he would drop to his knees if she ever really touched him. He just needs to be around her and he never asks for anything else.  
This is not quite the Davis she remembers and she wants him back.

"There's this Greek word, philia."

"I'm guessing it's not the Greek dressing you used."

"You get smart points for that. Roughly translated it's the love of country, the world, everything.  
It's the idea that you love everyone; try to help them no matter what, doesn't matter who they are. Or what. Then you let them go and move on. Heroes do that."  
She'd thought that Clark could get to that point.

She's not that noble.  
"I don't let go so easily." In that alley she hadn't those desperate please for her to get away had been any more than panic for his nearly being killed. She'd held onto the idea that her Davis, the Davis she knew wouldn't have been a serial killer. She knows even more now and she can't let go.  
She always held far too long and the evidence litters Smallville.

If he hadn't been That, but only Davis none of this might have happened.  
She'd have been with Jimmy, still telling herself that she could bee what he wanted. She would have been the perfect little housewife who never fell apart in another man's arms.

"I do care about you. And I'm not going to let you go to somewhere I can't get you back. You've got to trust me on this."  
She wishes he would look at her and then she can feel him reach out.

"You're the first person I ever trusted. I only trust in you."  
His hand is now longer two feet away, rough in hers, and she can feel the tension under his skin uncoiling (a dark reminder of exactly what else is housed there).

No time for that with his palm opening under hers, tightening reflexively.

She can feel the blood pumping under his skin, too fast. It warms her in a way she swore it never would again.

She's pretty sure this isn't healthy.

Davis is living in her basement with no human contact but her, he'd inadvertently caused her admittedly ill advised marriage to crumble to dust, and she'd almost gotten killed and forced him into being the monstrosity he was trying to escape.

His face looks odd, like he's breathing and choking at the same time.

She waits.

"My cells are mutating every second and I don't know if I have a conscience anymore. I might end up like Jekyll someday, but I won't ever, ever hurt you. You're the one thing that keeps me human."

"Davis."

It's not healthy for him define himself in terms of her. She's been faced with this all of her life, when Clark was her definition, and she molded herself to what he needed.

She knows; she's still there.

"Don't talk like that, okay?

I know plenty about you. When I met your entire life was saving people, you brought me back to my friends when you could've been the only person in my life, you tried to end it. None of that has changed. "

"I love you."

The last time he'd said that she'd been terrified. Nothing has changed there.

The words could mean anything from 'I feel a mild affection for you' to 'I'd like to make out with you until I change my mind'. She's heard both.

With Davis it's different- heavy and almost painful to hear. Maybe he needs to say it. He needs her, and its hurting him and she shouldn't want that.

"I've got you, then." She tells him briskly, loosens his hand a little but doesn't let go. She stands close enough so that he can reach her in seconds. "And you've got me."

She's not doing this to forget the image tattooed on the inside of her eyes. He's taken that, replaced it with something else. At this moment she doesn't know which is worse.

She can't say what he needs to hear, can't seduce him with pretty words. He's never needed that.

Logically, she understands that he's fixated on her and this might take the cake for stupid decisions she's made in her life, right on up there with spying on Clark.

But right now none of that matters. She needs the old Davis back, needs it to be easy again, needs to think that she has ground to stand on even when she knows it's sand.

If he feels, maybe she can save that piece of him, make him remember how he was.

She thinks that she can't take losing him again and doesn't realize she's said it out loud until he's right in front of her, a hand on her face, eyes dark, needy and completely readable.

A part of her feels like running, but it's a very small part. Her feet might just as well been nailed in place.

The yellow light gets into her eyes and she could close them on reflex.

His eyes keep her there, moving from her lips to her eyes, up again just like then the first time. He could have kissed her harder, made her stay, but he hadn't. He'd let her have her space and waited. She'd hated the space.

It's impossible to tell herself to think clearly when his face is that open in front of her.

She lets it lull her eyes closed, moves in and lets him seal the gap. He's warm as she remembers and his lips tremble at the corner of her mouth for a second, leave them tingling. He doesn't pull away, as if dis-attaching himself is possible at this point, but there's a second.

Her hands have somehow found the sides of his face, the slight roughness of the skin there and she knows that if she were thinking that she'd pull back. This is too intimate.

He must be watching her again, and she just wants him to get on with it, be rough, because she doesn't want to feel like this.

His forehead is against hers, she can hear his breathing and his lips barely graze hers again before one of them moves to get closer. Then it's more like a kiss, moisture and pressure and movement. He moves so that it forces her head to the side and she pushes back.

Then they're moving together and apart every moment, and the need for closeness is frantic enough that she hears the feeble sounds she's making into his mouth, distinguishes them from his. He's close, not close enough and she's too sensitive to the proximity.

This isn't the way she'd wanted to save him. She just wanted him to remember.

The vague sensible part of her thought it would be like this. His hands are behind her neck, tangled in her hair and moving over mortal, breakable vertebrae and bringing her as close as he can. She pulls in breaths too fast, and he takes hers. Once twice and they've found a tempo.

She has to tilt up on her toes and hold her hands steady. She smoothes her hands across the back of the shirt and wants to dig into it. She can feel the muscles shifting under the cloth, jolting at the light pressure. She needs to feel the solidity of that. His body is rigid with that same tension and she needs to bleed it out.

She pushes and he pulls her back with him.

The sound as his back hits the poster and the wall is almost like splintering wood. It won't hurt him, nothing ever will but her. She swallows in a breath, his breath or hers it doesn't matter.

She's barely touched him but it's as if he knows her, as if they've done this hundreds of times before.

He doesn't need a red rock to lock onto her. They've given up the hesitance now.

Now there's only the need for momentum, and the cloth on his back snags on ragged nails, trying to be everywhere at once. She knows this is too fast, but he moves desperately and she lets him, tries to get him deeper, the heady taste of him making her head spin.

They might as well be fused. Slowing down and putting the ambulance in reverse needs to happen unless she's ready, and no, she can't be.

The reasoning part of her mind tells her she should stop this, say it is a mistake and he'd let her go. Hours ago there had been blood on both of them and this is not the way to even the score. They shouldn't forget. They can't. That's not the way it should work.

The larger part of her simply rejoices in chanting 'screw the cosmic balance of the universe'. She could be lost to everything but him now. To Feel. Forget. Remember.

She waits.

Even as he spins them, backs her into the wall this time, she knows this is a choice too.

The poster hurts and the ridges of the frame dig into the small of her back, but she'd not thinking of that when his body grinds into hers, just once, with the impact and then he doesn't let go, doesn't slow down. It's everywhere, from the crazy throb of his pulse (so strange that he has one) to the hand loosening from her hair, pressing into the wall next to her. She hears the crunch into the rock. The Kryptonian powers manifesting. If he hadn't that might just have well been her bones.

The tension isn't gone from him, stronger now, body pinning her to wall. Hard enough that it's almost painful and she needs to feel everything. Her arms slip under his back, pressing in. She doesn't move them this time, lets them press enough to bruise a normal man. She wants to deceive herself.

He's a few stages farther in this than she is, and she feels a small satisfaction to the way he jerks in response. He's not lying to her, he can't lie to her like this.

He moves again, too jerky to be deliberate but the heat of the sensation drags across her, pulling her uncomfortably taunt. It's not like there is much of a barrier there and her body is ready as if he were that close, touching skin. The ache is worse, so strong that it almost sickens her. She can feel the weight of it pulling her down.

He should be rough, and he isn't and it's worse.

She needs to breathe.

She opens her eyes knowing she shouldn't because this is too much like a commitment.

His eyes don't shift from her face, and then that almost smile is something more painful. She doesn't think she can give him what he needs. Her head falls back against the wall and her fingers dig into his hair, pulling him forward. She hadn't expected it to be so soft.

His mouth falls close enough to her neck that his breath ghosts the cut, and further down she can feel the his body thrumming until she takes that in just where she needs it. Something in her shifts, acceptance. She can't breathe and she doesn't try. There's a clarity to the blackness exploding in her vision, to the feeling that he is close enough to be a part of her now.

It's only natural, isn't it?

Everything has narrowed to this moment and he presses around her and she lets go, doesn't care if it sounds like she's screaming or crying or howling like a banshee. She jerks further back, nearly bashes the back of her head against the wall, but his hand is there, cradling her. She doesn't know, maybe this is what its like to be mindless, but she knows what he must look like now, chin pressed to the top of her head.

She presses her head into the rough cotton of his shoulder and tries to get herself to still. It's a pointless exercise, he'd know anyway.

But if she does, maybe the fact that he just touched her a little and she lost control won't glare out at her. He's letting her have that.

Watching her half passed out on him might have given him farther motivation to finish this, finish them, but he hadn't.

He's completely still, almost, but the rasp in his breathing and tiny tremors in his shoulders give him away. There's a rush of something, a shift again, and she reaches up enough to almost touch him, lets her thumb smooth against his lip to keep him from asking if she's fine, or anything at all.

"I was kind of ready for that." She says, and maybe it's her way of giving him permission for what will come after.

"I think I've always thought it out different. You know, a bit more dignified."

She thinks she's smiling but the tilt of his eyebrows is too much like he's in pain, like the admission means so much more than it does.

Not knowing what else to do, she pulls him in again, harder, lets her mouth coax his open, makes her head spin. Mindlessness is welcomed.

She knows, knows that she only has to push so far before he's the one pushing. He's been denied this, for some reason she doesn't understand wanted it, wanted her and she's pretty much throwing it at him.

She doesn't have to wait long for him, to feel the darts of shock moving in her, warmth and not pain, but not enough.

The cloth of his shirt scratches unpleasantly and she pulls back enough to get it undone. It's gone, flung off far too soon and that's just his skin now, small rivulets of moisture trickling across. He's pale still but his skin has a flush to it, like a sickness.

In gothic novels tuberculosis used to be attractive, heroes died of it and pined, and he could pine with the best of them. But now he doesn't, moves against her like they've known this always, the sliding rightness of the feeling.

She absorbs the shock, bites deeply into her lip to keep her mouth from opening stupidly. Once twice, each moment building after another until she needs to get everything out of the way. She reaches to but his hand catches hers and his larger fingers envelop her palm, keep her from getting far. He doesn't talk, can't at first.

She knows he's not prepared and the idea that he could pass this to her into more than one way, create something that could very well tear its way out of her womb must scare him more than she knows.

"I can't. What if…"

"I took hormone shot so that's not an issue. That's what all the headaches were about."

She's just thrown down her last free pass.

There, no more excuses now and this is just one moment where she has nothing to say. 'I'm offering you what you want, take it.' Too mercenary. ' Take me now!' Too romance novel. 'I need you back.' Too revealing.

He's not going to hold back; maybe he will let it all go now. He still swallows slowly and a bead of sweat trickles its way down his adam's apple.

He sweats only with the change and when she touches him and it's mad-crazy-nuts to think that she has the same power as an irresistible genetic urge.

She can, she can do this.

She really shouldn't look at him, and she finds the path the drop takes disproportionately fascinating. She catches it right there on his throat, tastes salt like blood and doesn't move away.

He may be different from her but salt and blood will always tie them together, all living things. God knows he's alive.

She mouths his neck absently and it's not sexual, not really, but she can feel the vibrations in his throat for the moment before he corners her.

This is happening.

His momentum is aggressive this time and her body tightens on instinct, waiting for the impact to hit her like a two ton freight. He pushes close and she presses her knee into his side, feels shaky as his hand encircles it and the rest of him thrums close and warm and overwhelming.

He won't set her down, not floor, not for this. They wouldn't make it anyway.

He kisses her again against the wall, so hard that she twists in his grasp. He could do it now, ram in, and she wouldn't think of anything but him, there.

Again he surprises her and his thumbs trail down her neck, past the sensible silk up again, making the skin prickle in his wake. His breath is warm but he never touches the mark, not once, caresses the skin around it and maybe he's making peace with that.

He's not going to shatter her, she tells him so, because she's not some china doll. She is, in comparison to him, but she won't think of that now.

She's had enough of it, yanks down hard on the zipper and he moves into her before she can breathe again, too much, too close and she can't hold all of that in.

She tries though, digs her nails into the tendons of his shoulders, and he moves in inch by inch, and it would've bruised her had he not been so deliberate about it.

She blinks quickly because she's seeing him the way she's needed to for a while now, and for just a second the tragedy is washed out of his face.

The slight soft pushes into her feel like one long, drawn out caress.

'What are you waiting for?' and then somehow, impossibly, he is further in, moving fast enough to bruise.

Her mouth works and she thinks she's not quite herself- disheveled and speechless; but a knot in her hair catches around his fingers and at her wince he pulls it back. He won't stop watching her face, trying to make sure she is there and she won't look away because she needs to see him like this, not anything but human.

The ache builds right under the feel of him, leaves her unsatisfied and clutching harder.

He lets go of her neck and he knows precisely where to touch. He has long fingers, and the tension progressively eases and starts again, worse until she has to bite down to keep from screaming.

She knows, she knows she can't scream because Clark, Clark would hear it, even if he hadn't been the one to save her and he'd come speeding in and then it would be the monster, not Davis. The thought pounds urgent in her skull, and she has to say his name just not to forget it.

"Davis." And the rest spills out without clear intent. "Stay with me, okay?"

It's getting to him too and for a moment there she doesn't know if he'll be able to answer. He's biting his lip, too red in the light and he's solid, so solid. "I won't ever leave you." There's no mistaking the meaning, not now.

The apprehension is there, knowing maybe this is a promise he can't keep of every one he has given her but that alone is not enough to stop what has happened, what is happening now and he's with her now.

She works her leg as far behind him as she can, feels the steady forceful rock of his body provoking her to clench and cramp as if that could bring him any closer.

The sensation of him, how every atom between them seems to be on fire, explodes within her skull, dizzying, making tears leak out of her eyes and she still can't close them. He says her name over and over with a voice that is rough not velvet like she thought it might be once, but she thinks that doesn't matter.

He doesn't stop moving not then and his arms are tight, trembling with the force but at the moment, his face feels like the only steady point in her world.

They don't move apart, after.

She can feel the tremors still, mixing with the air that makes goose bumps pebble her skin except where they touch. She can feel his every motion through her, slow trembles as he tries to force the air in and out of his lungs slowly and the breath teases hair into her eyes.

He touches her still, but its not real touch, barely, as if she's asleep and he doesn't want to wake her. Maybe he's scared to move, scared that this will be shattered, too.

She feels limp as a rag and her feet hurt from standing on the cement so long. She's never done it like this, but it's not just that.

She's exhausted, like everything has been taken out of her. It's almost freeing.

Still, she knows what she should do now; push him out, firm but not rough, draw the silk back down around her legs and walk up the steps in case Clark checks up during the night.

Turn on the water, burn it all away.

She wouldn't have to say anything more about what had happened because it simply was. It had been urgent, everything about them is urgent now. He'd let her go, for now, if said she needed to be alone.

Increasingly, she suspects it's all her, afraid to be alone, afraid of losing him again. Afraid.

They haven't touched in so long, and maybe this is why her hand strays almost voluntarily to his face even though she can't see him and she won't look now.

While they're like this she can touch him without guilt because she's already made her crazy choices for the night. Even, now the reaction spreads like wildfire though him and it sends strange warmth curdling in her.

It doesn't have to end yet.

She still loosens his grip on her knee, disengages, but keeps his hand in hers even as it's tight again.

"I'm really very tired. And cold." It's petulant, but he takes it as his cue, another antiquated ritual as he gathers her up without the least bit of effort, and she thinks 'Kryptonian' again.

She realizes how very tired she is when the lumpy pillow on the cot digging into her back feels almost comfortable, and the look in his eyes doesn't make her stomach twist on itself as badly as usual.

She's got most of the room because he's propped on his side. "What are you doing?" she asks, just because the sound of her voice or anything is better than the quiet.

"I'm trying to memorize you." He toys with a strand of her hair, winds it around his finger like a kid. He doesn't say for later, for when she's gone. "I want to keep this so that no matter what happens I can come back to this."

"You'll have plenty of time for that. As I remember I didn't get much sleep. I need at least ten hours, I might snore and you may be lucky and get drooling too. Very memorable." Who was she kidding, he'd like that. She suspected he wasn't going to sleep at all.

"Until then, we have a charming mortal invention called pillow talk to keep us occupied. You know, where you tell me what you wanted to do when you were four."

"I don't remember that far back but at six I wanted to be a firefighter."

"I can see how that led to your later choice. I wanted to be a reporter. Nose. into. books. You know that."

It's not like they don't know almost everything about each other already.

"Recently, then." Recently what? She buried a body.

He'd clawed his way out of the ground before he'd found her, for god's sake, and that wouldn't make the best material.

The smell of acrid antiseptic stings her nose, and suddenly she thinks again of the blood on her hands, in the air, on him. Closes her eyes.

"Chloe, you don't have to stay. This isn't working."

"Sure it is. We'll never get past this if we don't deal.

What about fears?" Besides the part where she almost died and he'd gotten scared enough that the assailant ended up tiny pieces.

"Classic psychology, Clowns. Smiley or frowny?"

He frowns a little, as if this is an actual question, his eyebrow quirks up, and it's all so characteristically Davis that she's fine again. She's not going to leave this.

He isn't going to let her go.

* * *

Her lies are getting better, they must be. She looks into Clark's eyes and it still feels like every one she tells will send her spiraling a little closer to hell.

He knows Davis's grave is empty now. Something clawed its way out, he tells her.

"I think you've been watching too many Buffy reruns." She says, puts the pancake batter steadily back in the oven, and hopes he doesn't notice just how much there is of it. "We both watched him die."

"Something like the ultimate destroyer might as well come back."

"Okay, supposing, then that your theory is correct, why worry about me? You're the Kryptonian. He'd be going after you if he was alive. Not me. "

"It—he was obsessed with you. Don't you think it's more than a little worrisome that he'd try and get to you again. Or you killed him. He might have a grudge."

"He asked me to."

"That's right. He did. What if just the monster's left now, Chloe? It kills. That's what it does. You should get out a while, out of range. Didn't you say you wanted to be able to globe trot? I'm sure I can call in a favor with Tess and maybe you can go down to Mexico with Lois until it gets handled."

"I don't want that anymore."

"You might need that. I don't want you to be hurt."

"I said no, Clark."

You've got to let him go, she tells him, realizes the irony in the statement as she scrambles down the steps knowing she has to get Davis back.

* * *

Every time she leaves, it's worse for him and she knows it. He leaves the basement, shaking, and finds her on the street just in time. It's not her hair, her picture, her voice or the idea of her but a combination of all these things. It has to be her and she doesn't have Chloe-in-a bottle.

He looks sick, really sick, and she believes him when he says he can't be away from her, now. She looks his arm under his, goes with him back down to the dark and lets him hold her even as her thoughts spin her into fear again.

Davis can't hold it back without her, and she won't let it take control again.

She can't be away from her life either without someone knowing precisely what she is lying about.

One of these has to win.

* * *

The balance shifts when the suggestion to leave bubbles out of her throat, unintended.

He can't go with her everywhere she does because his face has been smeared all over the headlines by Tess Mercer, the infamous cornfield killer. He won't look at her, only at the paper with the same sick horror, like all that hope to be normal has suddenly been crushed.

He doesn't want her linked with that, doesn't want her to be trapped in his fight.

"Then we leave, we load up the car and never look back."

It's impulse, she knows that, knows part of her shirks back at the thought of losing every other thing in her world but him as tenuous as her hold is. She presses it down again.

She asks and he doesn't answer right away. No one would have done that for him, but she's not anyone and that doesn't make her an angel either. And an angel wouldn't resent, doubt, hesitate, fear…

He says it all out anyway.

"You wouldn't get to say goodbyes, not even to Clark. Can you do that?"

She'll have to, to give them a chance, and it strikes her that she's not ready, has never been ready for this.

She can't lose him, either.

Then he asks her that question, if she could honestly say he was the most important person in her life, and the pained sound of his voice still has the ability to hurt her. Things between them aren't solid, black and white. He's not her world as wholly as she is his and he knows it.

"I'm not going to lose you again, I told you. If this is what it takes, I will do it." That's true, she knows. "Hold out your hand and we're Bonny and Clyde. Only, you know, less blood."

This, a second, a beat and he does believe in her in a way no one else ever could. Maybe it won't be so hard, after all. They'll manage.

"You still have to ask." She tells him, and when he does she feels calmer somehow. She understands now that she would do anything for him, starting with shutting down that paper trail that could lead the world to them.

He says he doesn't know who he'd be without her and the words are too familiar, echoing another, older voice.

She nods, sharp and quick because he's shaped her too.

* * *

Dr Gaeta tells her that each time his cells are destroyed, they morph. That there is no cure, but she knows, knows that they have to find something.

It's not about destroying the cells, but taming them so he can be who he really is, human. Somehow she does it.

She is the sedative, he says, that the dramatic changes to it are brought on by love, hate, obsession.

It's all on her.

* * *

There's a wakeup call, that though he may be human around her, he's progressively less so around everyone else.

Jimmy is one of the intruders to her apartment and he gets wheeled out in a brace, telling her to stay away from the monster.

Oliver, Oliver is so angry he threatens to send her to prison for what she's done.

Because Davis had needed her she'd willingly ignored what had been coming all this time, that despite the fact that the other side of him wouldn't hurt her, it would gleefully rip the rest of the world apart.

Maybe she had worsened it, handled it wrong, but all she'd thought is that she could help him.

What choice did they have?

Despite Oliver's rage there is no bruise around his neck. Neither of Doomsday's victims are dead, as if somehow he'd managed to hold it back, some.

She'll find them, she'll fix this, she says, but Oliver tells her that Clark will handle it, and his eyes are darker than Davis's ever were.

She'll fix this.

She will.

* * *

The snow at the fortress gleams with cold but she doesn't notice the temperature.

Davis's hands are locked on Clark's shoulders and they're struggling, both of them in human form, and she sees that alien rage on Davis's face again, a millisecond, and for the first time feels actual fear.

He would have killed Clark without hesitation.

That was the Doomsday in him, that had to be Doomsday.

When she gets nearer he crumples out of sight on the ground, and all she sees is Clark, big mild eyes shocked, somehow betrayed.

"Chloe, what are you doing?"

She's angry, angrier than she's been in a while.

The portal is open, chaotic, ready to suck one or both of them in.

If Davis got sent there, it would've changed him to be what he'd been programmed for. To destroy. To die, Over and over, until no humanity was left.

"You were willing to force him into a life of hell for all eternity." She tells Clark, and he had been, face set, stony, ruthless like Jor El would have wanted, some sort of Machiavellian alien prince. "I can't let you do this."

That wasn't the friend she needed to remember.

Clark could've gotten sucked into the portal too, and that would have hurt her just as much; so she tells him that he needs to be there for the world, that she can't let him do this. It would destroy him, the idea of him, what he needs to be- the hero who always found another way.

He'd found it for her.

Then Davis comes to her, looking weak, walking humanly, not like some creature that was going to tear the world apart.

She realizes that_ she_ couldn't do this.

* * *

"You have to tell me what happened." She tells Davis then, because she won't be able to take another step if she doesn't know.

Maybe this is her fault, really all her fault, because when she asked Davis not to leave her, she assured that It would never give her up either. She fears what that could mean.

He doesn't say he doesn't remember. He recounts it all in painful clarity and she simply shouldn't listen, but she does.

"I could hear his blood in my head, he just kept talking, and it was going to claw Its way out to kill them both. I couldn't let it. Oliver said you wouldn't ever forgive me. I stopped then, just because of that, not because I could not because.... My God, what am I?"

"You didn't gouge out his eyes. That's something." That would have been too King Lear, and she says so, knowing she can't make the image just go away, and it's on her face, all over her face and he sees that.

"I'm not human." He says. "I'm losing my conscience. I don't have one. You're the only thing that's human about me."

She could say, no, that's not it, because he is human, now, feeling guilt and that means she can't feel anger, only pain making the keys shake in her hands, making her push on the accelerator too hard. She can't speak, not now, because she has to think, think of something, some other way.

"Please don't leave me." He says, and it's not physical distance he's talking about. That much has been there from the start- that she would stay with him, that she'd see this through.

"We'll be fine." She says finally, and he does breathe in relief. Sometimes she thinks she is lying to him, but he'll always believe her.

They'll be fine.

They have to be

* * *

"We're fine." She tells Clark, standing out by the car, the rain on the window soaking into her jacket.

"Admit it, Chloe; you have feelings for Davis, that's why you're protecting him." He sounds somehow pained and she doesn't understand why. Feelings changed.

She won't put it that way, not yet.

"That's not what this is about." She says finally. "Don't tell me you wouldn't have done this too."

"I wouldn't have."

"But now you're safe. I need to know that. All the things I've done, right or wrong, I've always done them for you."

Just this once, just this once it's not just that, but it's not a betrayal either.

"I can save you like this." She tells Clark. He's saved her too, so much. The knowledge that saving him she'll never see him again hits her startling. This is a sacrifice, but she'll make it, make that choice even though sometimes she doesn't know what she would've been without him.

She can. She's going to miss him like hell.

"You're wrong Chloe, you're wrong." And she's got a sudden imagine of him, strong and protective, still the boy she remembers. Maybe he'll remember her like this

"I'll find you, I won't stop. I'll get you back."

"Don't. Don't look for us, we'll be fine. We can do this. This is the last time I'm gonna call from this thing so don't bother getting a tracker okay?"

"Don't hang up." Maybe it sounds in her voice.

"Chloe. Chloe!"

"I love you, you big lunkhead. Make me proud, okay?" She scrubs the tell tale tracks off her cheeks with the back of her hand.

She can't let go.

* * *

Davis comes out, not a clue about the phone call.

From the set of his shoulders, she thinks he'd scruff his shoe on the pavement in shyness, on tenterhooks around her now, no matter how far they have gone.

The candy heart must have been hard to find in the bloom of Valentines Day mania, but he holds it up somehow, and the thought is so normal and out of place and sweet that she would've seen him doing that if they had been just normal, no ticking clock, just them

She takes it, and it's not so hard to smile for a little while.

It hurts because he wants so bad to make her happy, and she doesn't know if she can ever be fully happy again.

But he's here, with her, and that's comfort enough.

She's doing this, really doing this and she needs to breathe.

* * *

He drives this time, because she's been at it five hours already. She could make conversation about the differences between driving cars and ambulances but she's just too tired right now.

Instead, she fiddles with the radio dials, the stations still in English, and every song that comes on seems to be bluesy and nostalgic and the last thing she needs.

She flips off the dial again when 'Summertime' comes on, and all that's left is the cool thrum of the heater and the easy silence that is not so easy anymore.

"I wish I would've paid more attention to high school Spanish."she mutters, looking out the window. She can't stand it, the quiet.

"I'm sorry for this." he says, and she knows it was naïve of her to expect him not to notice. "You can tell me."

The problem is she can yell, tell him she hates him for not being just the demon in the story but also the man that she can't forget, for keeping her here until she is only in his orbit when she doesn't know how long she'll have him. She can fight and claw and hurt and he'll take it, and suddenly she doesn't want to anymore.

She just wants to cry again and that's just as bad.

They could be further down the border to Mexico but he pulls over the car by the roadside so she can. It's not long, maybe fifteen minutes and a half of a Kleenex box and a messy shirt before they really start talking.

"When I was growing up, I swore I'd never leave Smallville. You know, live there work there at the planet, grow old. I never thought I'd leave it all behind. You know the old cliché where a girl meets a new guy and leave her friends in the dust."

"Clark."

"He is the 'friends', I guess. I really don't have many. He's been a part of me so long I don't know if I can stop, you know?"

"I know." His hands stay on the wheel, careful, though he isn't driving.

He'll accept being second to someone else, something else if it means he can have some part of her heart.

It's all he has.

He knows alright, and she wonders, just briefly, what happens when she's gone, to him. Old age or sudden death doesn't matter. The outcome will be the same and he won't be able to fight it any longer.

In some ways, she is to him what Clark was to her, and none of that will change, no matter how far she looks to the past.

"He's a part of me, but you are too. I'm with you." This is just the right time for a sappy speech, but she only has the truth.

"It's really not so bad, you know." She turns to face him, the red wrapper crinkling in her palm. She looks for a hint of something in his face, not just the knowledge that he is Davis but that he understands.

"I've got a comfortable seat, a working air conditioner, a guy who loves me, and something to eat. I've always wanted that too."

That's the first time she's made any verbal acknowledgement of those feelings of his. She doesn't have to tell herself to believe it, because if nothing else, she can trust in this.

She waits for him to smile and it's not in his face, but in his eyes now, mixed with the apprehension for the future, the burning that won't let up.

She can't make that go away, and she doesn't try to, this time.

"It's been half a day since we ate anything."

She pulls the foil open, bites un-daintily as the chocolate melts, drips with the warmth of the heater. "You better do something or I'm going to get this all over the dashboard. Crying makes me hungry."

This is an invitation, just not the kind she's used to giving. "Want some?" she extends her hand palm up and holds the melting chocolate out even as it drips.

This had been simple and platonic with Clark, every once in a while slurping from the same straw because they shared everything.

In this light, it is slightly different.

Davis doesn't take the offering and she finds herself curiously paralyzed as he gently licks the dripping candy away, so deliberately that it makes her stomach tighten and makes the skin prickle on the calluses of her palm.

She holds his eyes, realizes that this is the same hand that had touched him, wiped the blood away.

* * *

_**Endnotes:**_ May get continued, .....dun. the phantom zone. Comment if interested. ;)

Now, off to answer all the lovely comments and finish Lathe and the plotty! Treading Old Ground Chapter.

Most importantly, what do you think?


End file.
